Singer and songwriter Caitlin Canty brings her fine-tuned country originals, downtrodden blues, contemplative folk, and rootsy acoustic rock The Mainstay in Rock Hall, MD on Saturday May 20, 2017 at 8:00 p.m.
With a dusky alto and a 1930’s Recording King , Caitlin Canty’s songs evoke the gritty backbone of America. Raised in small-town Vermont, the daughter of a school teacher and a house painter, she spent a decade in New York City cutting her teeth on both sides of the microphone – as a performer and as the first employee of a live music startup.
The songs on her breakout recording, “Reckless Skyline,” veer nimbly between country ballads and straight-up rockers, dark blues and sparsely arranged folk. It has garnered glowing praise from NPR, The Telegraph and The Philadelphia Inquirer among others. The San Francisco Chronicle lauded Canty’s “casually devastating voice and unshakable poise,” and her “easy way with folk, blues and country motifs.”
Elmore Magazine said “from country ballads to dark blues and quiet folk… Ms. Canty’s voice is soft, sure and brings to mind Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch.”
Her songs take commonplace moments, motifs and images infusing them with magic and wringing vastness from smallest details. They convey a restless energy, a clarity of purpose and desire to live fully within elemental processes – moving light, moving water, wildfire, ashes.
Prior to Reckless Skyline, she independently released the full-length Golden Hour, a gently produced and Western-tinged album tracked live in Maine in the winter of 2012.
A constant collaborator, Canty writes and performs with several bands including Down Like Silver, her ongoing duo with Peter Bradley Adams. Her song, “Get Up” received a Song of the Year nomination in the International Folk Music Awards, and she is the winner of the 2015 Telluride Troubadour songwriting contest.
Since she was last at The Mainstay, Canty went to Denmark to appear at the prestigious Tonder Festival and toured the Northeast opening for Anais Mitchell and the mid-West with Rose Cousins. In February, she sang on the two-part season finale of CBS show Code Black.
The Mainstay (Home of Musical Magic) is the friendly informal storefront performing arts center on Rock Hall’s old time Main Street. It is a 501(c)(3), nonprofit dedicated to the arts, serving Rock Hall, MD and the surrounding region. It is committed to presenting local, regional and national level talent, at a reasonable price, in an almost perfect acoustic setting. Wine, beer, sodas and snacks are available at the bar.
Admission is $20 if purchased in advance and $23 at the door. Information and advance ticket sales are available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org. Reservations to pay at the door can be made by calling 410-639-9133.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.